Prayer zeremony inside the church / temple of Cao Dai at Tay Ninh. View inside the big hall of the church / tempel. The town of Tay Ninh 160 km northwest of Saigon is the spiritual centre of the Cao Dai religion with the main temple of the church of Cao Dai. Cao Dai is a mixture of different religios ideas and concepts of christianity, buddhism, daoism and other spiritual asian and western sources. For visitors from western countries Cao Dai looks in many ways strange and sometimes bizarre. Cao Dai was established by Ngo Van Chieu in 1920. Ngo Van Chieu was a governmental officer on the vietnamese island of Phu Quoc. One day he had a vision of a higher beeing called Cao Dai Tien Ong. A few years later on the christmas eve 1925 Cao Dai Tien Ong gave him the order of founding a new religion. The goal of Cao Dai is to redeem all people. The way to redemtion is a peaceful live and equity. As the spiritual ideas of Cao Dai do, the colourful temples which are spread mainly over south vietnam mix up elemtens of christian chuches and buddhist and daoist temples. The higher beeing Cao Dai Tien Ong is symbolized by a single big eye. Cao Dai today has more than 2 million followers in vietnam. Four times a day prayer zeremonies take place at the main temple at Tay Ninh.
